Effectively administering computer administrative policies often involves tailoring policies for a particular user, set of applications, or computing system. Individual users or groups of users may require access to different data files, databases, or applications. System administrators may, for example, use network analysis software, but the presence of a network analysis tools on an accounting department computer system may represent a security threat. Application user interfaces and system administration messages may be tailored to the needs and/or technical sophistication of different types of users.
Customizing administrative policies for various categories of computing systems may involve collecting and collating large quantities of data about network activity, running processes, files and applications present on or accessed by computing systems, etc. Computing systems with similar attributes may be grouped in a common administrative category, for which administrators may develop a customized administrative policy. Unfortunately, in many cases a systems analyst may not be aware of the computing system attributes that indicate systems should belong to the same administrative category, or even what administrative categories may exist in an organization's computing systems. Accordingly, the instant disclosure identifies and addresses a need for additional and improved systems and methods for profiling client systems.